French advertising house Publicis Groupe has released its stats for Q1, revealing a picture of success for the quarter.
Acquisitions contributed a healthy €274 million in revenue, growing 17.2% year on year, in a quarter where the Groupe acquired a number of companies.
These included global omni-channel services firm Expicient Inc., South African communications agency Epic Communications, press agency Relaxnews and Monkees, the agency of reference in France for digital marketing and social media.
Publicis Groupe also finalised its acquisition of marketing and consultancy firm Sapient this quarter.
The Sapient deal has been marked as a strategic and profitable move for the Groupe, which is looking to rapidly establish itself as the leader in corporate digital transformation.
Ahead of the curve
Publicis’ consolidated revenue for the first quarter of this year was €2.1 billion, a 31.7% increase on the €1.5 billion from the same time last year.
Across Europe, revenue rose by 21.3% to €575 million from €474 million in Q1 2014, with Publicis Groupe’s divisions in France and Germany seeing 4.2% and 1.8% growth respectively.
Furthermore, despite company expectations that organic growth would see a slight decrease, Publicis actually saw it rise by 1.7% across the continent.
The Paris-based firm is already among the “big four” agencies, alongside WWP, Omnicom and Interpublic. However, Maurice Levy, chairman and CEO of Publicis, noted that companies must be at the top of their game to stand out in today’s rapidly developing landscape.
“Today’s sudden, radical changes in lifestyle and consumption in an unprecedentedly digital world leave all economic players facing a new set of challenges.
“[Companies] have to rethink their processes, their practice, their marketing, their customer relations and, more fundamentally, their business model.
“In this new environment, I think it would be fair to say that our Groupe is ahead of the curve.”